Poll question: Did you ever want to change your name when you were a kid? My youngest has

gone through several evolutions of "Don't call me B, my name is now ___________" and the eldest has decided to use an alternative spelling for his name. (Which has me tickled pink because that's how I had wanted to spell it in the first place, but his dad talked me out of it.)

First day of third grade, roll call. Some of the kids I'd been in first and second grade with were saying as their names were called that this year they wanted to be called ________ instead (fill in the blank with whatever new name for each). In retrospect, I realize they must have been going from the "kid" version of their actual name to the "grown-up" version; from "Liz" to "Elizabeth," for instance, or from "Bobby" to "Robert." But my perception was that they were making up new names for themselves on the spot, forging whole new identities, and I found it tremendously exciting. When it came my turn, I proudly stated that this year I wanted to be called _________ (fill in with totally new and unrelated name ... the name of a fantasy character whom I wrote about, in fact). I was tickled pink when the ploy worked, and the whole year my teachers and classmates called me by my chosen name; I got to sign it on my homework papers, and it was written on my report cards. The heady thrill of determining one's own identity!

In subsequent years I used other names until I finally settled upon the one I wanted to keep "forever." Some of the people in my life haven't been pleased, but it wasn't their choice to make. No one but you can decide who you really are.

6. When the elder son was 3 we went to a children's library hour in town. The

lady who was leading the group asked him his name and he proudly said, "Puppy!" I had no idea that he not only wanted to change names but species!

He's now 12 years old and I _still_ call him that. (The other one is Monkey, but I slapped that moniker on him when he was about 5 months old because of all the monkey noises he made. Turns out he can climb like one too.)

I think it's great how you were allowed to pick a new name as a kid in school! Younger was George Washington for a while there, among other things. He dated all his papers in the late 1700s. LOL I think he could get away with it because our school is so tiny all the teachers know who everyone is. There's no chance of him falling through the cracks for going by a different name every few weeks.

...that he needs to choose an "adult" name and identity for himself at that point. Well he doesn't *need* to, of course, but it's a long-standing tradition in many tribal cultures: when a child reaches puberty and starts to enter adulthood, they leave behind their childhood name, their society's view of them as a child. Instead they choose their adult name, their own perception of who they are and who they will be in their society. That's what I did, right around that same age. I clearly recall being about 12 years old, and I sat down and went through all the names that I had used as a kid, all the identities I had played with and explored, and said to myself that now I was going to decide upon *one*. I didn't learn until later that it was a tradition among many cultures; the timing just happened to match for me. Many years after that, I finally went to court to correct the rest of my records and paperwork (that is, I didn't "change" my name so much as I had it *corrected* to the accurate appellation). So I can sure relate to your kids!

16. no, but people just automatically started calling me by the shorter version

started in grade school, all the teachers and classmates just started using the short version. It was wierd at first since my parents ALWAYS used the full version. After it got to the point where EVERYONE just called me by the short version and I always refered to myself by the short version, my parents finally followed suit, lol! Only took them till I was in college to call me by the short version.

I was really frustrated in eigth grade trying to establish my own identity away from my folks, Very difficult when you go to the same school where your mother teaches. So, at the beginning of the years when I had to fill out a card with my contact info on it: I wrote down my middle name.

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